When hostilities with America seemed imminent in 1807, the militia nevertheless responded to the call with enthusiasm in Lower Canada, and Acts were passed in Upper Canada for raising, training and billeting the force in case of need. Although the language for which the Lower Canadians cried out was that of France Acadianised, the institutions and the laws in which they took pride belonged only to a France of the past. The Republic had placed between Canada and France a barrier which the priesthood declared to be impassable. What had they to do with the Goddess of Reason and a calendar without a saint? What had a people steeped in feudalism, or the Custom of Paris, to do with the Code Napoleon? Nevertheless the rulers of Canada suspected the habitans of treason, whilst the habitans suspected the rulers of designs upon their faith; and so it was that want of confidence, one of the most formidable impediments to the good understanding between governor and governed which can exist, took root and grew apace. The second war with the United States was at hand. The animosity of the Americans of the Southern and Middle States against England was much augmented by the discovery of a project of the Canadian Secretary, Ryland, to detach the New England States from the Union, and to annex them to Canada. The bitter feelings which the old New England Colonists had entertained towards their French neighbours had been mitigated by the influence of a common language and the congenial religion and laws of the English rulers of Canada. Certain it is that the New England delegates opposed the war which was declared against Great Britain by the Government of Washington by every means in their power, though they were by no means complimentary to Canada, which they supposed it to be one of the objects of the war party in America to annex. On the declaration of war in 1812, the Canadians, with the exception of the inhabitants of one parish, turned out with the greatest alacrity, and in considerable force, to defend their country. General Hall, the American Governor of Michigan, seized upon Sandwich in July in the same year; but he was soon very glad to cross over to Detroit again, where he very ingloriously capitulated soon afterwards to General Brock, with 2500 men and 33 pieces of cannon, thus surrendering the whole State of Michigan to Great Britain.